Artificial resuscitation or rescue breathing is a first-aid technique for reviving a non-breathing victim. During rescue breathing, the rescuer blows air into a victim's mouth, thus inflating the victim's lungs and providing necessary oxygen thereto.
More specifically, the victim is placed upon his back, the mouth is opened, the airway checked for obstruction and cleared, and the head is tilted backward while the chin is pulled upward. The nostrils are then pinched closed and an air-tight seal is made with the lips of the rescuer to the victim's mouth such that air blown into the victim's mouth inflates the victim's lungs. Rescue breathing is continued until the rescuer is exhausted, another rescuer assumes rescue breathing, or the victim revives.
As can be appreciated, such intimate contact is generally thought to be associated with the risk of transmitting communicable diseases. Of particular concern is the transmission of such life-threatening diseases as AIDS and Hepatitis. In view of this, there is a tendency to avoid the mouth-to-mouth contact generally necessary for such artificial respiration or rescue breathing.
It is known to utilize various devices which have been devised to isolate or shield the rescuer's mouth from the victim during artificial resuscitation or rescue breathing. One example of such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,628, issued to Eisenberg et al., on Apr. 11, 1989, and entitled MOUTH-TO-MOUTH RESUSCITATION DEVICE.
The Eisenberg device utilizes a relatively complex one-way valve arrangement to isolate the rescuer from air exhausted from the victim's mouth. Such one-way valve is therefore relatively difficult to manufacture, costly, and subject to reliability problems. Furthermore, the Eisenberg device employs a plurality of grooves to facilitate exhalation by the victim. Such grooves do not provide an optimal pathway for the victim's exhaust breath and as such may actually inhibit breathing.
As such, although the prior art has recognized to a limited extent the problem of isolating a rescuer from a victim in order to mitigate the potential for disease transmission, the proposed solutions have to date been ineffective in providing a satisfactory remedy. It would be desirable to provide an improved device for preventing disease transmission during artificial resuscitation or manual rescue breathing wherein the one-way valve comprises a simple, inexpensive, and reliable construction, and provision is afforded for effective and efficient exhausting of the victim's lungs.